Werbung/press trip
I made it
back to Tottori. As you might remember I was visiting Tottori last year, as I
am a huge fan of the anime Detective Conan. The founder Gosho Aoyama is from Tottori
prefecture. This time I was visiting Tottori to discover its beautiful
landscape, eat at the famous tofu restaurant and explore so much more of this colorful prefecture..
I traveled with the train from Osaka to Tottori, which took me about 2,5 hours, before I was welcomed by the local tourism board, which also has a tourist information center in the train station. Tourists visiting Tottori can collect brochures and information over there. Besides there is a special offer for tourists, who can order a taxi for 3 hours and pay only 2,000 yen per person.
After visiting the tourist information, I made my way to Amedaki, which is a beautiful area in the mountains. There was also some snow. Very unique for this area are the waterfalls of Amedaki, which are one part of the overwhelming landscape of Tottori. Close to the waterfalls one will also find a famous tofu restaurant named “Amedaki”. The tofu is sold all over Tottori and people literally go crazy for it. I can understand that very well, as the food is beyond words. One can eat “tofu everything”, just like tofu ice cream, tofu donuts and my favorite tofu dishes, which are yuba and inari.
After lunch, I headed to the Kannon-in temple, where I warmed myself up with some matcha and enjoyed the garden scenery. Japan is famous for its autumn leaves and while it’s already December, I was lucky to still witness the autumn scenery of Japan. Since I was mentioning the temple, I also want to introduce you guys to the ryokan I was staying at. Ryokans are temples where people can stay overnight. I always call it a “temple hotel”. It´s a very traditional way to experience Japanese culture and I love staying in the ryokan, especially sleeping on the futon beds. The ryokan “kozeniya”, has 180 years of history and kept its 25 bed rooms very traditional through that. This ryokan has private and public onsen with 53C temperature.
After
storing my luggage in the ryokan, I visited the Tottori Sand Museum, which is
currently also displaying an illumination. The theme of the museum varies every
year. This season the museum is displaying a tour around south Asia, displaying
various sights around the world. This is already the 12th exhibition
and its running until January 5th.
Around the museum, one will find the sand dunes, which are a true landmark of Tottori. I went in the night and joined the Christmas illumination. However, I also went to the sand dunes in the following morning. Tourists can experience the dunes while sandboarding down a hill. The dunes just feel like a desert, including real camels.
On the next day, after visiting the sand dunes, I went on a boat cruise along Uradome coast, where I was enjoying the breathtaking scenery. After the boat cruise, we also went to an observation point, where I could overlook the coast scenery and walk along the beach.
It truly impresses me a lot, that Tottori offers such a varying landscape. But besides the landscape, there are also other “local goods”, such as the Tottori folk crafts museum, which is all over known in Tottori. Next to the museum, one will find a shop and even gets the chance to eat out of the handcrafted goods when visiting the restaurant next door to the shop.
My last spot to visit in Tottori before leaving Tottori was the Hakuto shrine along the Hakuto coast. The local god of Tottori is a rabbit and is also known as the god of love so when vising the shrine one can (optionally) try to lead one´s fortune in terms of love for a better. After visiting the temple, I crossed the street to overlook the coast, before my check in at hotel Monarque. The hotel has a total of 7 floors, including onsen and western style rooms. The next day I already had to leave Tottori. I was very happy to return to Tottori and explore more of it. I really enjoyed the local foods, such as tofu or nashi pear and would want to come back in order to explore more of Tottori, especially in sakura seasons.
